Sculptural Vessel with Lizard

Object Name: 
Sculptural Vessel with Lizard

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Object Name: 
Sculptural Vessel with Lizard
Place Made: 
Accession Number: 
87.3.38
Dimensions: 
H: 45.5 cm, W: 21.7 cm, D: 19.2 cm
Location: 
On Display
Date: 
about 1878-1889
Primary Description: 
Transparent blue glass w/polychrome vitreous enamels; blown, hot-worked, hot-applied decorative elements, enameled, and gilded. Tall bulbous "vessel/sculpture" resembling a bundle wrapped in a three-cornered cloth and tied together, knot is topped with an hotworked abstract winged insect (hornet, bee, dragonfly); three vertical ovoid openings under knot formed when hot glass was pulled down and away, then attached to prunts on the body; lower half of gourd-shaped body is pushed in on three sides forming deep dimples that meet at the interior of the vessel; exterior decorated with trailed applications at the 3 "corner" edges, applied in a vertical zigzag pattern with alternating rosettes, trailing extends past body to form three irregular, pinched, pointed short legs; the three broad sides of body bear overall traces of gilding and polychrome enameling in the form of flowering apple or cherry branches with a winged insect, transversed on the three sides of the body by depictions of swaths of folded, embroidered textiles overlapping and overlapped by a large lizard with clawed feet, a snake, and two rats in human clothing sitting within a diamond; polished pontil; enameled on polished pontil in stylized block letters: "A. Jean".
Department: 
Provenance: 
Orkney & Yost Antiques, Source
1987-11-18
Recent Important Acquisitions, 30 (1988) illustrated, pp. 110-111, #25; BIB# AI20606